Mikel Arteta helped by Jose Mourinho and Liverpool as Arsenal boss avoids FA ban
Mikel Arteta has escaped a touchline ban for his referee rant.
Arteta was charged by the Football Association after his furious blast at the officials following Arsenal ’s defeat at Newcastle last month. Gunners boss Arteta branded referee Stuart Attwell’s decision to allow Anthony Gordon’s winner to stand after THREE VAR checks a “disgrace and embarrassing.”
The let-off is certain to anger some referees within the game because they want managers and players to show more respect towards officials. But an independent commission cleared Arteta from any wrongdoing after Arsenal employed a five-strong legal team led by barrister Ian Mill to fight the charge.
The 37-page written reasons published by the FA reveal that:
- The Spaniard was described as an “impressive witness” by the three-man commission
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- Arteta blamed a language barrier and In Spanish, the word 'desgracia' has connotations of “misfortune, tragedy or bad luck”, while the English word “disgrace” has connotations of “abuse or insult”
- Arsenal's legal team relied on help from as they cited two examples where the ex-Chelsea manager spoke out strongly in 2014 and 2018 but was not charged
- They also pointed at the “weaknesses and failures” of VAR and cited Liverpool ’s wrongly disallowed goal at Tottenham as to why managers have a case and the panel seemed to accept this argument
Mikel Arteta has avoided a touchline ban from the Football Association (Stu Forster/Getty Images)The commission - made up of Graeme McPherson KC (Chairperson), ex-Blackburn winger Stuart Ripley and Ken Brown - deemed that Arteta did not “cross the line” and question the integrity of the officials.
FA chiefs originally brought the charge because their rules state that they can take action for “prolonged” and “personally offensive” comments towards the officials.
However, the panel decided that because of the language breakdown that he was not making a personal attack on Attwell and also that he used the same language in three separate TV interviews.
Therefore, Arteta was deemed to being just repeating what he had said. It is understood that Arteta showed the video footage to his players in the dressing room immediately after the game and also got club clearance to make strong-worded comments in his post-match interviews.
Arsenal used a precedent set by a response to Jose Mourinho criticising officials in 2014 (AMA/Corbis via Getty Images)HAVE YOUR SAY! Should Arteta have been handed a touchline ban? Let us know in the comments
The club later issued a statement supporting the manager but, despite the FA writing to Arsenal in relation to that, they did not take action against them.
The panel said in the written reasons: “We accepted his evidence that it was certainly not his intention to insult any match official or to act other than in the interests of the game when making the comments that he did during the Interviews.
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“He plainly had a good understanding not only of the need for respect to be shown to match officials, but also of the reasons why such respect is essential at every level of the game, and particularly why respect must be shown by individuals who are role models to others in the game.”
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